Ho Chi Minh, the Villain of Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh

One of the most “prominent” figures in Vietnamese history has to be Ho Chi Minh. He is the man who established the Viet Minh group, and later on the Viet Cong. His reason for creating the Viet Minh was to expel the French colonists from Vietnam, ending their 80 years of occupation. This seems to be a noble cause and in many ways, it is. However when one looks at the choices Ho makes in his personal and political life, the evidence paints a different picture. After all, Ho Chi Minh is the man that brought Communism to Vietnam and under his leadership, millions of Vietnamese lives were lost. When Ho rises to become the President of North Vietnam, he draws up arms against the democratic South Vietnam and ultimately drags the country into a civil war that lasts for over 20 years. The ideology that Ho Chi Minh and his Party inflicts upon Vietnam will prove to be severely detrimental to the country, even to this day. Presently, the Communist Party is still in power, suppressing and cracking down on anyone who doesn’t share the same ideas as the Party itself. Democratic activists are jailed, religious groups are targetted, and the Communist government is hopelessly corrupted. The subject of Ho Chi Minh is controversial and extremely complicated, but when one looks at the direction that he leads the country in during his rule, and the disastrous results of the Communist takeover, it is obvious that Ho Chi Minh has done far more harm than good for Vietnam.

I don’t believe you understand much of what communism is. Communism gives power to the laborer s of the country, thus giving them more rights and power in order to do away with classes and any sort of caste system. It is well known that Ho Chi Minh was a socialist (the stepping stone to communism). And communism has been persecuted by America for so long that our society believes it to be completely wrong.

Also, one very big misconception, is that Ngo Dinh Diem was not at all supported by the people of Vietnam. He was supported by the United States, and created by the West. It is amazing to realize that Ho CHi Minh was supported by a larger population than Ngo. Anyway, none of this is meant to sound hostile. I only mean to enlighten you on a few facts. Respond if you are troubled with any part of my comment. Please don’t take this as a personal attack.

Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first. And wanted to work with the U.S. in 1946, he wanted to end French rule and unite all three states of Indo China into Vietnam . I believe if the U.S. had not been so blind to his nationalistic and not communistic style of government ten years of war, 58,000 dead and my navy years of service (1961- 1981) would have been different

1). Communism gives nobody power but the “party”. Do you really want to trust just one party with a country, or would you rather give people a choice?
2). Communism/Socialism tends to make the average citizen poor, because redistribution causes businesses to fail. I don’t know why this happens, but it tends to happen a lot.
3). Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown by a military coup in ’63. An election took place in ’67, and Nguyen Van Thieu was elected President… democratically.
4). Ho Chi Minh had over 100,000 people killed in the ’50’s for criticizing land reform.
5). N. Viet Nam’s land redistribution (a.k.a. theft) caused a lot of starvation because people were given land they did not know how to use. (The same thing happened in Khmer Rouge Cambodia)

I agree with JB and Anonymous. Ho Chi Minh was a wonderful leader who led the struggles against French colonialism and Japanese fascism. He admired the US so much that the wording of the beginning of the Vietnamese declaration of rights is the same as the US one. (“All men are created equal and they are endowed by their Maker with certain inalienable rights”).

Many Americans who served with the Overseas Strategic Service (the forerunner of the CIA) in Vietnam and got to know Ho Chi Minh very much respected him and his ideas. They made representations to the US leadership not to get involved in war of independence between the French and the Vietnamese. But they were not listened to and the US gave huge amounts of funding to the French government of the day. The rest we know is history.

The US made an enemy of Vietnam, which was basically stupid. Even though, the Vietnamese did not have the military hardware, their determination and ingenuity with the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap, meant they could not be beaten.

When many people quote the sins of communism, the usually mean those nations that describe themselves as “communist”, but, in fact are “Stalinist”. Stalin was a butcher who undermined the Russian Revolution. The Chinese government and the Pol Pot regime are the worst examples after Stalin himself.

In my opinion, we cannot afford to not be socialist if human beings are to survive as a species. In this neoliberal phase of capitalism, we are confronted with very wealthy people of power who want to continue to make even more wealth. Their greed leads them to exploit ordinary people and the environment for their own ends. And we now have a situation where the differences between the rich and the poor have never been so great. The wealth of the top 200 wealthy is more than that of the rest of the world put together.

Meanwhile, we are confronted with climate change and massive pollution that has already poisoned many of our food-growing regions across the world.

Greed is putting us all at great risk.

Mahatma Ghandi once said: “The world has enough for everybody’s needs. It does not have enough for everybody’s greeds”. (the wording is slightly altered to overcome gender exclusivity!).

Socialism is about sharing the world’s resources as fairly and as responsibly as possible.

Capitalism is about the greedy being in charge and has led to a world where 2/3ds of the world are starving even though many of those are working. They are not paid enough to adequately feed, clothe and provide education, and medical care for themselves and their families.

We also need to look at the bellicose nature of the US Military Industrial Complex which has been responsible for many of the wars in recent times (including the one in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and those in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan) . It has also been responsible for installing and/or supporting some very nasty dictatorships and governments eg Indonesia, Israel, Chile, etc
And has carried out atomic testing over the Marshall Islands causing many of the inhabitants to die from malignant growths.

Most humane people, including many peace-loving Americans who respect human rights, are appalled at this behaviour.

I would respectfully suggest that for the health of the planet and the social justice of the people on it, we need a green type of socialism.

Well written. I believe the U.S. is a great country but often mislead and lied to by various agencies of this govt. Power will always corrupt. I am a life long moderate Republican and served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years (61-81) retiring as a Chief Petty Officer. We supported a very bad/corrupt government in South Vietnam.

We need to continue to broaden the modern Vietnam so it can truly be a full partner in the growth of the Pacific Rim. JB